1 of 12: A Dozen Days of Twelve Step Concepts

Obvious to anyone who has seen my recent posts, I've broken up with diet dogma.  It was a rough relationship, and one that has left me scarred.  I'm not going back, ever.  I do, however, still have a substantial library of scripts by those whose research and routines have helped many, including myself, find lines to include in our own Wellness Scripts.  As a fellow Scribe, especially at the beginning of the year, I intend to find and feature the pearls I find perusing these texts. 

This is the first in a series on one of the "oldies."  Fashioned after another lasting twelve step program, Overeaters Anonymous (OA) has related texts to explore.  I haven't ever been a part of this program, so I'll learn alongside you what each of these twelve step concepts might say to us today.

Image source:  https://step12.com/the-12-steps.html

Alcoholics Anonymous has been around for over eighty years now, its Big Book seen as the ultimate tome of recovery to this day by those in its various programs, OA included.  The links I've included in this post will take you to free resources, even a free digital copy of the Big Book itself.  There are many interpretations and offshoots of this program, all of them pointing back to the original and the program's co-founder, Bill W. (1895-1971).  Many readers are likely observing "dry January," and may find the Big Book helpful.

Bill B., another Bill for another burden, published his 1981 interpretation for compulsive overeaters after his own experience with OA helped him with that nemesis.  I linked the author with the book, republished in 2011; but since I was unable to find a free copy of Compulsive Overeater, the link takes you to Barnes & Noble, with whom I have no affiliation.  Nor have I affiliation with any other such seller, and as such, I'll disclose that my own 1981 copy came to me from a secondhand store commonly known as Goodwill.  Full disclosure:  many of my books are acquired secondhand, and I'm not sorry I've given them a second life.  Also, I believe in supporting your local public library.

Bill B's adaptation of the original Twelve Steps for use by compulsive overeaters is given in the pages before the book's preface, and the first is: 

"We admitted we were powerless over our food compulsion - that our lives had become unmanageable." 

Essentially, this is a recognition of the pain, grief, shame, and other costs of behavior and a humble recognition that our own attempts at modifying that behavior have profited us little.  It's a release of the pride which keeps one stuck in the muck and mire of unhelpful relationships with food and body.  It is an acceptance of self despite shortcomings and it separates one's self from one's relative sin - we are not our actions.  In Bill B's words, "What the First Step helps us to see is that we are what we are - and we are never going to be different."

It's no easy thing to honestly, unreservedly, and humbly accept oneself when the culture around us and the history behind us (even the dialogue within us) seems to insist we control and coerce ourselves into being other than what we are.  What, exactly, are we?  We are human souls inhabiting flesh, gifted with thought and intuition and language and all manner of liberties; and we are fallible, frail, fickle creatures whose innate mechanisms of regulation are given to dysfunction.  That does not mean we are wretched, hopeless, worthless folks who need a program in order to function - it means that we learned some ways of being which have become part of our identity up to this point.  As learning creatures, we are adaptable and ever changing, which means we have hope after all, our worth inherent in our existence, and our inner dialogue faulty and deceptive at times.

Jotting with Johnna:

• What reactions do you have to the concept you might be "powerless over" your own wellness obstacles?
• Are your own obstacles time management, impulse control, lack of boundaries, or is some other thing causing you to abandon your intentions in the moment of decision?
• Have you ever felt as though your life "had become unmanageable," and if so, is it because you were relying on your resolve to exercise control at all times?

Remember: 
You are a person of worth.  You matter.  You are not your behavior.  You are capable of more than you'll ever fully know, and that includes recovery.

Stay tuned.  Stay focused.  Stay well.